1st Edition
Understanding Tuberculosis and its Control Anthropological and Ethnographic Approaches
Over the last two decades, attempts to control the problem of tuberculosis have become increasingly more complex, as countries adopt and adapt to evolving global TB strategies. Significant funding has also increased apace, diagnostic possibilities have evolved, and greater attention is being paid to developing broader health systems. Against this background, this book examines tuberculosis control through an anthropological lens. Drawing on ethnographic case studies from China, India, Nepal, South Africa, Romania, Brazil, Ghana and France, the volume considers: the relationship between global and national policies and their unintended effects; the emergence and impact of introducing new diagnostics; the reliance on and use of statistical numbers for representing tuberculosis, and the politics of this; the impact of the disease on health workers, as well as patients; the rise of drug-resistant forms; and issues of attempted control. Together, the examples showcase the value of an anthropological understanding to demonstrate the broader bio-political and social dimensions of tuberculosis and attempts to deal with it.
1. Introduction: Persistent pathogen
Helen Macdonald, Paul H. Mason and Ian Harper
2. "I wish one of these patients would sue us": Malpractice at the policy level and how Romania is not treating M/XDR-TB this year
Jonathan Stillo
3. "Where is the state?" Tuberculosis strategies in Ghana
Elisa Vasconi
4. "Time standing still": Nurses, temporality and metaphor in a paediatric tuberculosis ward in Cape Town, South Africa
Kate Abney
5. "It’s also the system": Republican dilemmas in French tuberculosis prevention
Janina Kehr
6. Using local statistics to tinker with TB treatment in a central Indian clinic
Helen Macdonald
7. Community DOTS and beyond: Tackling the collective processes that (re)produce tuberculosis in Rio de Janeiro
Oriana Rainho Brás, Carlos Machado de Freitas and João Arriscado Nunes
8. The price of free: Contextualizing the unintended expenditures of diagnosing tuberculosis patients in Kunming, China
Emilio Dirlikov
9. Innovating tuberculosis diagnostics for the point of care
Nora Engel
10. India’s national TB programme: The struggle for innovation and control
Mark Nichter
11. Excluded from reciprocity: Tuberculosis, conspicuous consumption and the medicalisation of poverty
Paul H. Mason
12. Consumed in care: Healthcare workers in Mumbai’s TB-control program
Ramila Bisht
13. Between representing and intervening: Diagnosing childhood tuberculosis during a vaccine trial in South Africa
Justin Dixon and Michèle Tameris
14. Dianosing tuberculosis: A case study from Nepal
Ian Harper and Rekha Khatri
Biography
Helen Macdonald is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Ian Harper is Professor of Anthropology of Health and Development and Director of the Centre for Medical Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh, UK.